Monthly Archives: December 2006

We have come to the last days of the Church’s preparation for the feast of the Nativity of the Lord. COLLECT: Deus, humanae conditor et redemptor naturae, qui Verbum tuum in utero perpetuae virginitatis carnem assumere voluisti, respice propitius ad … Continue reading →

EXCERPT:
TodayÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s prayer was, as we read above, among those used to admonish people to fast during the seventh month. We have ancient sermons about this September fast time as well as the Advent fast of the Ã¢â‚¬Å“tenth monthÃ¢â‚¬Â (time was calculated a little differently then because the calendar had little by little drifted). For example, we have the wisdom of Pope St. Leo I (+461), nicknamed Ã¢â‚¬Å“the GreatÃ¢â‚¬Â, about the Advent fast: Ã¢â‚¬Å“What can be more salutary for us than fasting, by the practice of which we draw nearer to God, and, standing fast against the devil, defeat the vices that lead us astray. For fasting was ever the food of virtue. From abstinence there arise chaste thoughts, just decisions, salutary counsels. And through voluntary suffering the flesh dies to the concupiscences, and the spirit waxes strong in virtue. But as the salvation of our souls is not gained solely by fasting, let us fill up what is wanting in our fasting with almsgiving to the poor. Let us give to virtue what we take from pleasure. Let abstinence of those who fast be the dinner of the poor.Ã¢â‚¬Â Another great saint with the nickname Ã¢â‚¬Å“the GreatÃ¢â‚¬Â, St. Basil of Caesarea (+379) hammered home the urgency of Advent almsgiving: Ã¢â‚¬Å“The command is clear: the hungry person is dying now, the naked person is freezing now, the person in debt is beaten now Ã¢â‚¬â€œ and you want to wait until tomorrow?Ã¢â‚¬Â In the ancient Church fasting from good things was closely connected to good works of mercy for the poor, especially almsgiving. Do not forget this, O Catholic reader. Continue reading →

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 3rd Sunday of Advent “Gaudete” – Station: St. Peter in the Vatican ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2006 I have had interesting correspondence with a scholar of Latin, Claudia Wick, who works for … Continue reading →

Biretta tip to blog participant Cathy of Alexandria for alerting us to a letter of support published in the French daily Le Figaro in favor of the restoration of the "Tridentine" Mass. They actually says, "Gregorian Mass", which we must … Continue reading →

Many Old Testament figures are accounted as saints by the Catholic Church. Today is the commemoration of St. Haggai, one of the twelve prophets of the Old Testament. Here is his entry in the Roman Martyrology: 1. Commemoratio sancti Aggaei, … Continue reading →

Here is the Collect for the 2nd Week of Advent. This prayer has its roots in Rotulus 19 published with the Veronese Sacramentary. It is also in Gelasian Sacramentary. It was not in any edition of the Missale Romanum before … Continue reading →

There is a little-known fact about the order of these ancient O Antiphons. This is not apparent in English, but it can be seen clearly in the official language of the Roman Catholic Church: Latin. The Latin versions of each … Continue reading →

Here is the Collect for the 2nd Week of Advent. This prayer was in the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary but not in any edition of the Missale Romanum before the Novus Ordo. COLLECT:Concede, quaesumus, omnipotens Deus, plebi tuaeadventum Unigeniti tui cum … Continue reading →

I reported the other day that the Holy Father would give links of the chain that bound St. Paul to the Orthodox Archbishop of Athens. Here is the speech, so far in the French version (which is the language it … Continue reading →

I know you have seen this already, but we should have some dicussion about it. You know that right wing politics in France is tied to the older form of Mass is. Now Italy? The story is from CWN. If … Continue reading →

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“This blog is like a fusion of the Baroque ‘salon’ with its well-tuned harpsichord around which polite society gathered for entertainment and edification and, on the other hand, a Wild West “saloon” with its out-of-tune piano and swinging doors, where everyone has a gun and something to say. Nevertheless, we try to point our discussions back to what it is to be Catholic in this increasingly difficult age, to love God, and how to get to heaven.” – Fr. Z

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- Pius XI

If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

- 2 Chronicles 7:14 RSV

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"We as Catholics have not properly combated (the culture) because we have not been taught our Catholic Faith, especially in the depth needed to address these grave evils of our time. This is a failure of catechesis both of children and young people that has been going on for fifty years. It is being addressed, but it needs much more radical attention... What has also contributed greatly to the situation is an exaltation of the virtue of tolerance which is falsely seen as the virtue which governs all other virtues. In other words, we should tolerate other people in their immoral actions to the extent that we seem also to accept the moral wrong. Tolerance is a virtue, but it is certainly not the principal virtue; the principal virtue is charity... Charity means speaking the truth. I have encountered it (not speaking the truth) many times myself as a priest and bishop. It is something we simply need to address. There is far too much silence — people do not want to talk about it because the topic is not 'politically correct.' But we cannot be silent any longer."

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"Where priest and people together face the same way, what we have is a cosmic orientation and also in interpretation of the Eucharist in terms of resurrection and trinitarian theology. Hence it is also an interpretation in terms of parousia, a theology of hope, in which every Mass is an approach to the return of Christ."

"In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. ... If all Catholics are obliged to oppose the legal recognition of homosexual unions, Catholic politicians are obliged to do so in a particular way, in keeping with their responsibility as politicians." CDF 2003

One of the most dangerous errors is that civilization is automatically bound to increase and spread. The lesson of history is the opposite; civilization is a rarity, attained with difficulty and easily lost. The normal state of humanity is barbarism, just as the normal surface of the planet is salt water. Land looms large in our imagination and civilization in history books, only because sea and savagery are to us less interesting.
— C. S. Lewis

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"Latin is a precise, essential language. It will be abandoned, not because it is unsuitable for the new requirements of progress, but because the new men will not be suitable for it. When the age of demagogues and charlatans begins, a language like Latin will no longer be useful, and any oaf will be able to give a speech in public and talk in such a way that he will not be kicked off the stage. The secret to this will consist in the fact that, by making use of words that are general, elusive, and sound good, he will be able to speak for an hour without saying anything. With Latin, this is impossible."

- - Giovanni Guareschi

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Grant unto thy Church, we beseech
Thee, O merciful God, that She, being
gathered together by the Holy Ghost, may
be in no wise troubled by attack from her
foes.
O God, who by sin art offended and by
penance pacified, mercifully regard the
prayers of Thy people making supplication
unto Thee,and turn away the scourges of
Thine anger which we deserve for our sins.
Almighty and Everlasting God, in
whose Hand are the power and the
government of every realm: look down upon
and help the Christian people that the heathen
nations who trust in the fierceness of their
own might may be crushed by the power of
thine Arm. Through our Lord Jesus Christ,
Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee
in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world
without end. R. Amen.

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Food For Thought

“The legalization of the termination of pregnancy is none other than the authorization given to an adult, with the approval of an established law, to take the lives of children yet unborn and thus incapable of defending themselves. It is difficult to imagine a more unjust situation, and it is very difficult to speak of obsession in a matter such as this, where we are dealing with a fundamental imperative of every good conscience — the defense of the right to life of an innocent and defenseless human being.”

For your consideration…

"One of the most dangerous errors is that civilization is automatically bound to increase and spread. The lesson of history is the opposite; civilization is a rarity, attained with difficulty and easily lost. The normal state of humanity is barbarism, just as the normal surface of the planet is salt water. Land looms large in our imagination and civilization in history books, only because sea and savagery are to us less interesting."

- C.S. Lewis

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“I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.”

Francis Card. George

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"It will never be known what acts of cowardice have been committed for fear of not looking sufficiently progressive."

Charles Pierre PéguyNotre Patrie, 1905

"If I ought to write the truth, I am of the mind that I ought to flee all meetings of bishops, because I have never seen any happy or satisfactory outcome to any council, nor one that has deterred evils more than it has occasioned their acceptance and growth."

St. Gregory Nazianzus
ep. 131 - AD 382

“We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women. If we do not reach that time, then our children and grandchildren will reach it, and they will sell your sons as slaves at the slave market.”

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“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

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Food For Thought

“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites. . . . Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

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